In this sobering scene, cartoonist Thomas Nast conveys the seriousness
of the temperance issue in nineteenth-century America and, in
particular, the perspective of the Womenís Crusade against saloons,
which spread across the nation in 1873-1874, culminating in the
establishment of the Womanís Christian Temperance Union.

The temperance movement originated in the 1820s to lower the
prevalent use of alcohol by Americans. From 1800 to 1830, the annual per
capita consumption of alcohol rose to its highest level in American
history (three times higher than todayís rate), most of which was hard
liquor, such as whiskey and rum, consumed undiluted. The situation
prompted one historian to label the period as the "alcoholic
republic."

Modeling their crusade after religious revivals, temperance advocates
used moral suasion to reform problem drinkers. Some reformers also began
to lobby for the regulation or prohibition of alcohol. In the early
1850s, 13 states banned the manufacture and sale of alcohol, but most of
these poorly drafted laws were struck down by state courts.
Nevertheless, between 1830 and 1860, temperance agitation led to a
dramatic reduction in Americansí per capita consumption of alcohol and
a switch to lighter beverages, most notably beer (partly due to the
influx of German immigrants).

The Civil War interrupted temperance reform efforts and enhanced the
liquor industry. Congress, state legislatures, and city councils
implicitly sanctioned the liquor industry when wartime tax policies
tapped alcohol distillers and retailers as a good source of government
revenue. Various brewersí associations organized to negotiate with the
government and to influence public policy. The war also encouraged
drinking as an integral part of male culture, removed from women and
families.

After the war, membership in temperance societies grew at an
impressive rate; the membership of the Independent Order of Good
Templars rose from 60,000 in 1865 to 400,000 in 1869. While most
temperance advocates were Republicans, party leaders tried to distance
themselves from the contentious issue. Democratic politicians, with
large Irish and German constituencies, opposed prohibition legislation
as an illegitimate government encroachment on personal liberty.
Dissatisfied with the two major parties, a group of temperance advocates
formed the Prohibition party in 1869. It attracted only a tiny (though
growing) number of voters, but sometimes played the spoiler in the
evenly-matched party politics of the late-nineteenth century. Some
historians peg the Prohibition party as the deciding balance of power in
the extremely close presidential election of 1884.

Along with temperance societies, the retail liquor industry
experienced a post-war boom. The number of liquor dealers expanded by
over 17% annually from 1864 to 1873, compared to a 2.6% annual increase
in the nationís population. Critical attention focused on saloons,
which encouraged overindulgence with inducements like free lunches with
drink purchases, a free round to the dayís first customers, and free
alcohol to underage drinkers. The saloon was an almost exclusively male
space, full of booze, cigars, spittoons, paintings of nude or
scantily-clad women, and (in the low-grade joints) prostitutes.
Especially to women temperance advocates, the saloon became a symbol of
the moral corruption of husbands, fathers, and sons through alcoholism.
The saloons enticed men away from their families and their jobs, making
them irresponsible and abusive.

Dio Lewis, a longtime temperance lecturer, had been giving a speech
for twenty years which included a story about how, in the 1830s, his
mother and her female friends had closed down five saloons in their
small town by confronting the owners in their businesses with hymns,
prayers, and pleas. In December 1873, Lewisís oration inspired some
Ohio women to take action. The Womenís Crusade of 1873-1874 soon
spread to over 900 communities in 31 states, with over 140,000 women
taking part. Ohio remained the most active state, with one-third of the
crusades, but New York, Michigan, Illinois, and Indiana were each the
site of at least 60 crusades.

At a typical crusade, male supporters prayed and rang church bells,
while scores of women descended upon the saloons, where, either inside
or outside the doors, they followed the pattern of prayer, song, and
exhortation to temperance. Two weeks before this cartoon appears, a Nast
cover-cartoon for the March 7 issue symbolizes the Womenís Crusade as
Joan of Arc bravely battling Demon Rum. In the same issue, editor George
William Curtis, an opponent of prohibition laws, is nonetheless
sympathetic to the temperance crusade. The movementís driving force,
he asserts, is "the inexpressible and far-reaching sorrow of
suffering women."

The Womenís Crusade had some success in closing a number of
saloons, especially in small towns were temperance reform already had
significant backing. The enthusiasm of the grass-roots movement carried
over into the formation of the Womanís Christian Temperance Union (WCTU)
in November 1874. Unlike the Womanís Crusade from which it emerged,
the WCTU did not rely merely on moral suasion, but kept alcohol
regulation and prohibition on the nationís political agenda until the
1919 ratification of the 18th Amendment, banning the
manufacture, transport, and sale of intoxicating beverages.

In Nastís powerful cartoon, the evils of the saloon are evidenced
in the skeleton bartender dispensing drinks, the unconscious drunk on
the floor, the men fighting in the backroom, and the violent graffiti on
the wall. The central focus is on the well-dressed patron whose turn
toward the opening door shields his identifyóhe could be any of the
newspaperís middle-class, adult male readers. The illustration
expresses the theme of the Womenís Crusade that the male bastion of
the saloon takes men away from their families. The door is a symbolic
threshold between the dark immorality of the saloon and the luminous
virtue of family life. Entering the saloon on a mission of rescue is the
patronís family: his innocent-faced daughter, running for her fatherís
affection; his son, looking concerned with furrowed brow; and his wife,
weeping in a widowís black attire. The circle of their figures is
completed by the family home in direct view of the patronís gaze.

On the page following Nastís cartoon is another full-page,
temperance cartoon by Michael Angelo Woolf, "The Social
Juggernaut." It features a ghostly figure riding an alcohol bottle
with liquor-glass wheels, pulled by the dogs of Ruin, Despair, and
Famine, and crushing people underneath it. The issue also contains an
illustrated story on one of the crusades at a New York City bar; an
illustrated poem "Like Father, Like Son," in which a fatherís
descent into alcohol dependence is mimicked by his son; and a back-page
cartoon of a bottle of rum in prison for "manslaughter in the
greatest degree."